de Burgh de Bunked in Seville

“There’s a Spanish train that runs between Guadalquivir and old Seville….”

That was Chris de Burgh’s introduction to North American audiences, spoken, not sung, in 1975.

Even when the droning dirge “Lady in Red” made me long to see de Burgh tied to a RENFE rail, I continued to love the romantic allusions conjured by “Guadalquivir” and “Old Seville.”

We took a full three days to explore Old Seville on this trip, and it didn’t disappoint. Our pension was in the old quarter, a stone’s throw from the cathedral and an easy walk to virtually all of Seville’s many charms.

Minus the water and pervasive dog droppings, Seville’s old town is reminiscent of Venice, with its confusing maze of narrow, interconnecting lanes. Pedestrians are principally relived of the nuisance of automobile traffic, however, frequent shoulder checks are prudent for approaching bicycles, scooters, and the electric light-rail that purrs through the main square.

I almost immediately added Seville to Prague at the top of my list of favourite cities. Architecturally, they’re quite different, but each in their own way are stunningly gorgeous and without a hint of the plastic artificiality that adorns some pretty cities. Instead, like Prague, one senses in Seville the vitality, almost an earthiness, of a lived-in city that doesn’t so much celebrate its centuries’ of culture as breaths it.

Guadalquivir, as I discovered, is not a an ancient Spanish town, but the river that runs through the heart of Seville, about a half-dozen train car lengths from Old Seville.

But as for de Burgh’s reference to Guadalquivir, I have to say I was a little disappointed – romantically. Guadalquivir is not, after all, an ancient Spanish town, it is, in fact, the river that runs through the heart of Seville.

More to the point, any train running between it and Old Seville would stretch, oh, maybe a half-dozen train car lengths. Hardly enough time for the lord and the devil to roll craps for the souls of the dead or even, as the tale concludes, settle down to an older gentlemen’s game of chess.

At the risk, then, of sounding jaded, I find myself now doubting that a spaceman really came flying, that there’s truly a cold north wind called “La Bise,” and that Patricia lasciviously licked her lips on route to my late-teen fantasies.